


Salt

by lazzokay



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe, Original Character(s), Pirate AU, Pirates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-15
Updated: 2013-03-15
Packaged: 2017-12-05 09:19:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/721419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazzokay/pseuds/lazzokay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Les Amis Pirate AU. Shipmates of the Musain cause havoc across the Mediterranean and back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The wind howled through the sails like a wolf in the night. Hard, cold rain beat down on the deck as if to split right through and take them all straight down to the locker and beyond. The waves, beating, frantic, wrecked against the hull like a rhythm in an orchestra, rocking the brave frigate precariously to and fro on its dark canvas beneath.

The night had been a weary one. No men had been lost to the storms, but there was something in the taste of the rain that sent a sense of unease through the belly of the Captain. A closeness, a kind of claustrophobic choke that wrung his insides in a way he couldn’t quite explain.

 _They feel it too,_ he realised. He watched as his crew scrambled like ants over the rigging, avoiding the eyes of their fellow shipmates, doing their duty. Each perfectly manufactured for a life at sea, a strong build, a heavy constitution and a mind for rum when the opportunity called, and yet something about them, tonight, in this rain, didn’t quite seem to lock.

A summons from the rear upper deck called him from his musings. “Captain!” The voice was high in pitch, cutting through the night’s roar. The new boy, the youngun they had picked up in a nearby port. An orphan.  _Not yet 10_ , the Captain recalled.

A figure, scrawny yet somehow not altogether unseaworthy, scrambled down the steps to the centre deck where the Captain stood. “Captain!”

“Yes, boy, what is it?”

“A light, Captain. From behind, Captain.”

 _A light._  The knot tightened on his innards, steeling his stomach. He followed the boy up the drenched steps to the quarterdeck in a kind of daze. They reached the stern to a dying murmur of a conversation between a duo of shipmates.

“All I’m sayin’ is it weren’t worth botherin’ the Captain about is all. Not even sure that I saw anythin’ in the first place, like, n’ anyways, I’m sure it were nothin’ that would-” The boy froze as he saw the Captain’s approach. “Look, you’ve bloody done it now n’ all,” he croaked to the lad next to him. Both were sea-battered youths, small in the features but lean in the limbs from years of labour with the crew.

“Explain yourselves,” the Captain barked.

Neither replied. They seemed to be stuck in between glances to each other and the Captain, and then finally over the stern of the ship into the night’s horizon.

“There was-” one started. “He saw-” the other overlapped.

“There was a light, ‘e says.” The orphan pointed at the elder of the boys. “Over the back of the ship. Only it ain’t there no more, Captain, see. It’s gone.”

The orphan was right. There was no light on the horizon, not a glimmer to be seen but the stars above and their reflection in the ocean.

“It was nothing, then,” he told the men, though his conscience did not match countainence. “Back to your duties.” He turned to the boy, the orphan at his side, and lowered himself to his level, kneeling on the wet deck floor. “What’s your name, lad?”

“Gavroche, Captain.”

“I see. Well, Gavroche, get yourself below deck. This storm grows wilder by the second, and we wouldn’t want you getting lost in it, now, would we?” He ruffled the boy’s hair, and pushed him off towards the lower deck.

The hours moved slowly on without incident. At around midnight the Captain escorted himself to his chambers, though sleep came interrupted by grim, murky dreams. A light on the horizon. A ship, drenched all in cloud and smoke and mirrors. A sail, so violently red, wrapped all around his men, drowning them, choking his lungs and filling his chest with sea water.

He awoke with a yelp, a sheen of sweat layering his brow, his hands groping at his throat, his breaths wheezing and heavy.  _Just a dream_.

A voice cried from above, a shrill call of a man in distress. _No_ , his brain wracked and whirred,  _it was just a dream_.

But the shouts increased, and did not die. He was thrown suddenly out of his bed as the ship floor jerked beneath him, and he was vaguely aware of the sound of shattering wood from far off. The door to his cabin burst open, and the noise grew louder still but he just knelt, clutching a wooden pillar he had been flung into to as the canon-fire had hit the boat. He could do nothing else. A voice called to him, calling his name, but it seemed muffled, far away, unimportant. He shut down. His eyes closed.

He was jerked out of his stupor by a stony wall of ice cold water slamming into his face. “CAPTAIN!” The racket from outside was suddenly a reality once more, and as he drew in a sharp breath through the water running down his face, he was suddenly aware of little Gavroche running around his cabin and fetching his battle gear, his uniform, his sword, and loading his gun.

“Captain, come on, you have to get ready. A ship, Captain, appeared out of the night, all quiet, like. The rain’s stopped but there’s this fog, Captain. Come  _on_.”

The words hit him harder than the cup of water to the face.  _I should have him whipped for that_ , he thought, as he took the sword belt and buckled it to his trousers. But he wouldn’t, he knew. He deserved anything but a whipping, and he may not even get the chance.

Dressed and armed within minutes, Gavroche nodded his approval and drew a boy’s salute. It was not a polished salute in the slightest, but his face ran with sincerity, conviction and loyalty. The lad waited for the Captain’s salute in return, and bolted for the door, towards the deck and the commotion above, now mixed with a clash of swords and gunfire. Some voices called for “King and Country,” without falter. But the rest… He could not decipher.  _I will know soon enough_.

 _For King and Country,_  he told himself, unsheathing his sword and unlatching the cabin door.  _For King and Country_. He stepped out into the hold, the noises from above getting louder and sharper by each second.

“For King and Country,” he said aloud this time, breaking into a run, jumping 2 steps at a time and emerging onto the deck in a hot frenzy. The scene was a battle field. The air stank of salt and fresh blood. A mix of blue navy uniforms blurred together with a foreign site, a uniform they had not come across before. Not a navy, not a clan, nor pirates, either. And the colour… Their waistcoats, each the same in cut and colour. A vivid shade of red with splashes of white and blue.

He made his way, panting, dodging through the swords and gunpowder, to the starboard side. His head swam, the faces in the fight didn’t look like faces anymore, more like blurs of red and blue and off-white. As he reached the wooden railing, clinging on for dear life, he saw it. The red flag. Red, like the colour of blood freshly drawn, flying above sails of white at the peak of an unfamiliar mast of an unfamiliar ship. Her sides were gold and crimson, and at the hull the name of this rogue ship was written in bold red lettering with a gold shadow.  _Musain_.

“ _La_ _révolution_ _!_ ” a voice yelled.  _The Revolution…_ No… That was over, that was years ago. He must have misheard.

The Captain spun on his heels, straight back into the fight at hand.  _For King and Country_. He drew his gun, pointing it directly at the nearest outlaw and pulled the trigger.

A flash of golden light. In one split second the Captain of the ship was acutely aware of a boy’s laughter, somewhere in the mix of murk and destruction. Then sudden darkness.

When he came to, only the lapping of the waves and a muttering of low voices was to be heard. His mouth tasted of blood and gunpowder. The battle, the light, the backfiring gun, the laughter, and darkness all came rushing back to him in a bitter memory. He winced as he tried to open his eyes, the glaring sunlight a distinct change from close fog and heavy rain. As his eyes adjusted to the scene around him, he struggled where he sat, bound in rope, on the hard floor of that foreign ship he had dreamt of.

To his right, he spied Gavroche, the pip of a boy who had so chirpily helped him into his uniform. But something about this wasn’t quite right. Gavroche was not bound to a mast like he was. In fact, one of the crew of the  _Musain_ , a rugged looking man with unruly black curls, had his hand placed gently on Gavroche’s shoulder. The wild man turned to Gavroche as he realised the Captain had stirred, cracked a smug looking grin, and ruffled his hair. Realisation hit the Captain in the form of the twisted hand groping at his stomach once more. The boy had loaded his gun for him.

A minute or so later, a fair looking individual with a head of golden locks and a young face appeared upon the deck. Nods and words of acknowledgement led the Captain to believe that this man, this youth, was the leader of this band of rogues. He approached, and bent down beside him.

“ _Capitaine?_ ” he asked in a calm tone. His features revealed no intentions.

The Captain remained silent and frozen, staring into the unblinking eyes of the man before him. Unchanging, the leader nodded, a kind of respectful motion, though without sympathy or kindness.

“ _Oui._ ” He turned to a shipmate. “ _Combeferre._ _Débarasse-toi de lui_ _,_ ” he said with a dismissive wave of a hand.

The Captain was unbound from the mast at gun-point and pulled from his seat. A rough hand on his shoulder pushed him towards the edge of the ship, and retied the ropes around his wrists, the barrel of a gun pressed all the time into the nape of his neck.

As he stood on the edge of the wooden beam, his uniform in tatters, he thought he spied in the distance the remains of a ship he once knew. His ship. A sail in the water. He turned on the plank, staring each man of the crew of the  _Musain_  in the eye. “King and Country,” he called. Nobody moved.

A groan sounded from the dark haired outlaw the Captain recognised from earlier. He rolled his eyes, pushed past a shipmate, and slammed a foot down onto the plank.

His footing escaped. He dropped into the open air, and took his last greedy gulp of salt and sea and life, before a resounding crack as the Captain disappeared into the abyss.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Le Musain docks at a Spanish port. Grantaire goes missing.

He awoke, peacefully, to the slow sound of seagulls, fish merchant calls and a light childish laughter. Mid-day sun was still high in the sky and beat down on his face with a ferocity that may have been uncomfortable if not for the gentle ease of the coast's breeze. Foreign smells of fresh fish and ales from the local Spanish taverns mixed with the familiar comfort of sea salt and canvas. Enjolras filled his lungs with it in a deep, diaphragmatic breath before easing his eyes open to the sight of Courfeyrac, Combeferre and Gavroche making their way up the gang-plank.

Since leaving _La Boneparte_ in wreckage and its captain to the fishes off the coast of southern France, _Le Musain_ and its crew had made its way south towards Spanish waters, docking into Port Mahon on the first day of summer. Three days had passed since then, the days grew hotter still, and Les Amis de l'ABC showed no signs of restlessness. That was, all of them except perhaps their leader. Enjolras' mind grew ever more wary of the crew becoming idle under the exotic sun. _I shall set sail again soon only to find my crew's limbs turned to squid fried in garlic and their brains to spanish sherry,_ Enjolras thought as he pushed his hat back on to his head from where he had been shading his eyes with it.

The over-throw of _La Boneparte_ had been too easy. The utter incompetency of its Captain had resulted in a one-sided battle and a swift victory. Of course, having an inside hand to throw the match had made it almost a laughable win. Though, if there was one thing _La Capitaine_ of _La Boneparte_ would take to his sea-bed, it would be this: _load your own damned gun_.

“Working hard, _Capitaine?_ ” Courfeyrac quipped, tossing a lump of chorizo sausage wrapped in paper into his lap. Enjolras gave him a disapproving eye and a cocked brow as he unwrapped the chorizo and bit a chunk out of the middle. Three days ago he might've been at least an ounce excited by this exotic meat but he had quite frankly had it up to here with chorizo sausage. He had promised his friends a week in a Spanish port, or until they got tired of the foreign tongue and olives.

Gavroche burst into a full belly laugh as a slither of grease from the chorizo slid down Enjolras's chin and on to his shirt. _The things one finds positively hysterical when_ _young and wild,_ Enjolras mused _._ He could not help but smile along with the others as he wiped the grease quickly from his chin with a handkerchief.

You see, Les Amis de l'ABC may be a band of loud, drinking, fighting ruffians but they were far from being lawless pirates. The french sea did not have pirates, not _real_ pirates anyway. Revolutionaries, Enjolras would say, though Grantaire might say Sea-Police in a mocking slur. None of the duties they performed at sea were for gold, as a pirate's motives should be. They attacked no merchant ships, took no more plunder than they needed. Their targets were navy ships, mostly, with the occasional throw in of passage ships carrying notable royalist figures. On the further afield navy frigates they would board, the crew members they took as captives during the onslaught would be routinely asked to denounce their loyalty to their King and join their cause or else face the plank. Some agreed. Most of the higher ranks chose their icy fate with the seabed. Loss of life was nothing new.

From the quarterdeck, a sleepy-eyed Marius had spotted the fresh haul of exotic fruits of the spanish port market. He descended the steps and took a slice of olive bread from Courfeyrac.

“Has anyone seen Grantaire?” Marius asked.

No, they hadn't. It was not unusual for members of Les Amis to wander off in the morning and not be seen until the sun went down and the rum came out. But Grantaire... He had not been seen at all since the previous night's tavern adventures into the port, where the unruly thing had taken leave to find a privy. They had guessed at the time that Grantaire had made his staggered way back to _Le_ _Musain_ , but when they woke in the morning he was still absent. 

Enjolras would not concern himself with thoughts of a blind-drunk Grantaire stumbling his way through the harbour, tripping over his own feet and ending up face down in the bleak water. He had wandered off at ports a thousand times in the past and he would continue to do so until he _did_ end up face first in the drink. _Not today, though,_ Enjolras knew. 

He tidied himself, changing his shirt for something cleaner, before they set out inland together. As a spanish on-looker one might have mistaken them for the group of relatively unshaven school boys they were. Jehan had picked up a handmade straw hat from an old, leathery skinned spanish lady from along the docks, and wore it proudly as they whiled away the June day exploring the backstreets of the rickety port. Marks of battles gone by could be seen in indents on the walls taken from bullet wounds and in the way the buildings held themselves together. Though the inhibitors of the coastal city would not have said a word about it (if anyone but Jehan could understand a word they were saying), Enjolras could feel the city's wounds in the mortar. Port Mahon was a place visibly still wary of war, even thirty years out of it and under solid spaniard rule.

They spent the day dipping in and out of taverns and picking up other members of the crew along the way. By sundown, they were a complete band of shipmates... All, except Grantaire, of course, who still had not shown up. As the lads dawdled, as tipsy lads will always do, down a quiet backstreet, Enjolras brought up the matter of the missing R.

“If he doesn't show his face soon, we shall have to start thinking about leaving without him.” Though Enjolras admitted aloud to caring little about the man, the idea was somewhat melancholy.

“We'll have to start sending out for a new resident drunk until he returns to fill the gap,” piped in Courfeyrac, carrying Gavroche on his shoulders, who let out a shrill chuckle. 

Combeferre's expression was grim. “Have you perhaps thought that he might not be coming back? You know the man, he could well be up-turned in a ditch somewhere with a dagger in his throat.”

The words did not leave Enjolras' mind, even as he changed out of his clothes and slid himself into his bed back in the comfort of his cabin. What if he had been wrong? That his comrade, his shipmate, his... friend had met some sticky end in the cold hours of the previous morning. He shuddered. Had they done enough? Could they have made more of a push to find this... animal, in amongst the bustle of the markets and the inns and the brothels? It would have been an impossible task, but perhaps that was not the point, in the end.

His train of thought ended abruptly as a crash came from somewhere on the boat. Enjolras glanced at the mantle clock in the moonlight – 2:30am. Everyone else had gone to their hammocks hours previously and would be fast away in their dreams by now. Thoughts of thieves, burglars, and worse ran through Enjolras' mind, images of his entire crew laying glazy eyed in the salty sea with their throats slit as some scallywag spaniard sailed off with _Le Musain_. He slid from his bed in his nightclothes, lit the lantern by his bed and stepped out into the mild summer night air.

Enjolras was just approaching the door to the dormitory where the crew hung their hammocks when a groan and a curse came from inside. He let out the long breath he had been holding in his lungs. _Grantaire._

Sure enough, clutching at a wooden pillar amongst the hammocks as the boat rocked slowly back and forth, there he stood. His eyes were shut. It must have been taking all his concentration to simply stay standing upright on his feet in his current state.

Enjolras stood in the doorway, watching, as Grantaire stumbled towards his own hammock. He hoisted a leg up halfheartedly onto the side of the canvas, but clearly lacked the footing and his other leg slipped straight from under him and he landed with a thud and another curse onto the floor.

Enjolras let out a quiet chuckle. He strode silently, both bare and sure footed, to where Grantaire lay, one foot still tangled in the hammock, on the wooden floor. As he reached him, Grantaire awkwardly seemed to try and adjust himself in his position, but the situation only became more comical as he attempted to hoist himself onto his hands but landed back down again with yet another thud. Enjolras helped to untangle him from his hammock, but as Grantaire started to mutter something about giving him a boost up, Enjolras put a hand on the man's shoulder. Confusion spread across Grantaire's face.

“Can you walk?” Enjolras asked in a hushed tone.

Grantaire nodded, but as Enjolras took his first steps back towards the door, he noticed Grantaire staggering under the steady to and fro of the ship on the water. He sighed, and hooked an arm under Grantaire and walked alongside him. He felt Grantaire's eyes on him as they walked through the sleeping men by their side.

He walked him across the hold to the spare cabin saved for 'guests', though they were few and far between. Inside the small space was a lone, rough looking single bed, but at least it would not do its best to tie up its inhabiter. Enjolras lowered the man down onto the bed, and sighed as Grantaire immediately stretched out and rolled over to sleep. He tugged off Grantaire's boots one by one and, as unmotherly as he could possibly manage, spread the blanket over him. _What are we to do with this man?_ he thought, rubbing his eyes.

As he made his way to the door, he was stopped in his tracks. “Enjolras." 

Enjolras didn't move. The word was said slowly, as if every syllable had to be considered before being voiced.

“Thank you.”

Enjolras took the final steps towards the door and clicked it firmly shut behind him.


End file.
